The head of Britain’s Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) last week issued a report stating that the Blair government is not changing fast enough to keep pace with the environmental problems facing that country and the world at large. Sir Jonathon Porritt, chairman of the SDC, said that Blair’s central objective remains conventional economic growth rather than the well-being of society and the planet as a whole.

The report is the most detailed study so far of Blair’s professed commitment to sustainable development and cites a list of examples of where that commitment is falling short.

“We see a world in which many natural resources are being dangerously depleted, in which biodiversity is being lost at an alarming rate, in which many forms of pollution are spreading, which is gravely threatened by long-term climate change, and in which the total impact of the UK’s activity is adding to the world’s problems,” the report stated.

The report criticizes several individual policies, including Blair’s handling of threats such as global warming, waste generation and road building. One of its central recommendations is that the government’s definition of economic growth should be revised to account for environmental effects.